The Fatigue of Empty Gestures

One of the drawbacks of living in a society where feelings short-circuit logic is that all too often is that people engage in acts of compassion for dubious reasons, or engage in acts that by their communal nature make people feel compassionate without actually ever requiring anything from them.

For example, earlier this year I was perusing a cousin’s Facebook page. On it was a notice that he would be attending an event in Detroit entitled “End Hunger, Cure Poverty”…or was it “Cure Hunger, End Poverty”? The point was questionable either way. I found it slightly ironic, as this cousin is professional clergy, and as such, should know better than to fall for the hubris of ending or curing poverty. After all, he serves a savior who very plainly stated “For you have the poor with you always, but Me you do not have always.” I have no problem with people who want to assist others, and I’m all for them doing it privately, rather than with taxpayer money, but eventually, my curiosity got the best of me, and I sent him a message asking “Do you honestly believe that man can end hunger?”

I got back a one word reply. “Yes.”

I’m still not sure how that isn’t essentially calling Christ a liar, but I have to work out my own salvation with fear and trembling. I’ll leave that other question to him.

I saw this on the gas pump at Safeway last night, and while I think it’s great that people are giving to this, I found the idea that a $10.00 donation would “End Hunger” almost offensive.

And so we come to the current over-wrought emotionalism in the wake of the Sandy Hook Elementary Shootings. It isn’t enough for celebutards and leftist mouthpieces to labor under the delusion that government can and should abrogate our Second Amendment rights, and to say so at every opportunity, and displaying their moral superiority and clarity by calling for NRA members to be shot, but we also have what is now the cause ribbon of our day: The Moment of Slience, “out of respect” for those murdered.

Last night, after making Christmas cookies to take to work and share with co-workers, my wife turned on the TV. It was tuned the Miss Universe Pageant. I was on the computer in the living room, so I could hear it when the frivolous proceedings were halted as the contestants and the audience observed a “Moment of Silence” for the victims of Sandy Hook, “out of respect” for them. My eyes rolled as my wife changed the channel.

But the thought remained, like sand in my underwear. What did it accomplish? It was an empty gesture, but it undoubtedly made people feel as they were doing something, and therefore embodied the kind of substance that society has come to treasure in this day and age. I know that this will cause some to conclude that I am harsh, or a jerk, or worse. While that wouldn’t be the first time (it’s an occupational hazard), I floated the thought in a community of friends on Facebook, and found that I’m not the only one who thinks so.

The emptiness of the gesture wasn’t the only thing about the “Moments of Silence” that are popping up like daisies in the wake of the shootings. It was the fact that so many of the people eager to participate in this formal expression of grief are the same people who would think nothing of aborting those same kids when they were just “blobs of cells”, but now want to weep over the corpses (from a distance), and promote the idea that more government and fewer means to address its overreach are the solution, rather than seriously examining the idea of crazy person control.

A friend pointed out that it implies a moment of prayer, but doesn’t go that extra step, and this was an event that called for it. But then he also stated “…if Democrats called for a moment of silence for every aborted child, they’d never speak again.” Another pointed out that the formal nature of it makes it an act without meaning. And one pointed that it was another demonstration the narcissism in our culture…another way for those who love attention to draw it to themselves. I think that this was also part of my irritation, much like something known on an instinctive level, but not yet teased out of the subconconscious, instead waiting for sudden jelling of the kind to wake me at 3 am when my brain finally fit it together, because the minute I read these remarks, my brain immediately went to Matthew 6:5-6:

““And when you pray, you shall not be like the hypocrites. For they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the corners of the streets, that they may be seen by men. Assuredly, I say to you, they have their reward. 6 But you, when you pray, go into your room, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly.

Congratulations, society. You have found a way to pretend at the genuine concern and emotion of another age, while investing nothing in it. Say what will, but you can count me out.

20 Responses

You’re not alone, BIC. And neither am I. My boy buddies and I have been discussing this very thing for some time now. I’ve been thinking the same thing for years. A moment of silence? What for? Before we play ball, crescendo to the cheering throes like we do the national anthem?

It’s another act that demonstrates the superficial emptiness of our country. I don’t question people’s heartfelt need to somehow feel they’ve “done something.” It’s human nature to want to help. I suppose that moment of silence is an acknowledgement that we’ve noticed; but this will be quickly forgotten as the OKC bombing has now been forgotten.

What I question is what is the meaning offered by those who stand in silence? What personal sacrifice does it represent? Do you honestly thinks it somehow fills the hole in the heart of a mother who has just had a child murdered for us to stand in silence? That it somehow justifies us as a most caring nation? Do these people have any idea how many children are murdered daily across this nation by sheer negligence or meanness? I can’t pick up a paper anymore and not read of some toddler beaten to death by the live in boyfriend, or left unfed by some meth muddled mother on a psychosis binge.

This moment of silence is akin to the same emptiness of Rutherford’s requests when he would ask us to being thinking about him or pray for him before one of his many health concerns. To whom? The God that Rutherford mocks when he feels he’s out of the woods or uses as insult when he’s out of bullets? Of all of his hypocritical acts, that was the request I found most hypocritical. I got to the point my prayer for Rutherford was for him to wake up and take off the blinders – not out of his induced sleep but his life’s slumber.

I’ll make a confession. This travesty hasn’t troubled me like it has others. Oh, it is gut wrenching to see these children’s faces on the TV screen, what little I’ve seen. It’s more painful where the casket is four feet long. But it doesn’t trouble me more than the teacher being mowed down sheltering her students. You can’t contemplate or understand the fear in those few moments unless you’ve lived it. I don’t try.

Perhaps it doesn’t bother me and doesn’t render me some emotional wet noodle like it does this audience needing a moment of silence crowd because I recognize immediately upon death, those children sit in the kingdom of heaven. They are more joyous, more satisfied than anything this earth could have ever offered them. Every one of them. I honestly believe that. I mourn to a limited degree as a stranger for their parents and grandparents and the void it has created but that’s an everyday tragedy; no more or no less than a parent that loses a child to cancer.

To the godless of the world, they are left with only an image of unspeakable horror and no more. It is death that separates me from the Rutherford crowd the most. They can offer no comfort – so they sit with their heads bowed (to whom I don’t know) in a moment of silence because they can provide nothing else, as if somehow their acknowledgement changes things. It changes nothing.

I had a neighbor that moved some years ago, a pretty and nice gal who I didn’t know well, that lost a daughter at age 7. The child died from leukemia if I remember – a slow, agonizing death. This was a balanced woman and I believe Christian, but that doesn’t free her of the pain. It’s not supposed to.

One day I was up on my roof fixing something when my pretty neighbor stopped by from the street. Previously, we just said hello with a passing line. She shared that her daughter had died. I told her I already knew and was sorry. I told her as parent I knew that she had just faced the very most difficult thing a human can face – the loss of a child – and it would be impossible for me to understand the degree of her pain. I could offer no sympathy more than telling her I was sorry, which I was. Her expression changed from pain to resignation and sorrow.

As she turned to walk off, she looked up and said, “You know what the hardest part is? Why? Why does God allow this to happen? She was my only daughter and our first born.”

At first, I suggested she find a counseling group of parents that have lost children. “Only they can truly understand your pain.”

But that felt so inadequate. So I looked at her and said something to effect, “Are you familiar with story of Job?”

“Kind of.”

“Then my only suggestion other than shared company is to read the entire story of Job when you are of the mind, focusing on the first and last chapters. I have no answers for you and neither does anybody else on this earth. While grief counseling may help, you will never be the same and though the grief will eventually reside to a degree, you will always have a hole. Your hole must be filled and there is only One who can fill it. I only know when Job was faced with the same questions and demanded answers, even the most righteous never received explanation. But in Job’s quid pro quo with God, Job left satisfied that everything was in good hands, that everything was alright, and that his children were where they were supposed to be and cared for better than anything Job and his wife capable.”

I think as Christians, we must leave it at that and have the faith to see things through.

BIC, this is mainly to reinforce your previous response for the unteachable and uneducated as you were scolded. Since they won’t take your word for it in their false sense of outrage, perhaps they will take the work of a real expert.

If this doesn’t back up the truth of what you previously posted, nothing will. It almost reads like you wrote it:

Excerpt: So now that there is a new tragedy the president wants to have a “national conversation on guns”. Here’s the thing. Until this national conversation is willing to entertain allowing teachers to carry concealed weapons, then it isn’t a conversation at all, it is a lecture.

Now when I say teachers carrying concealed weapons on Facebook I immediately get a bunch of emotional freak out responses. You can’t mandate teachers be armed! Guns in every classroom! Emotional response! Blood in the streets!

No. Hear me out. The single best way to respond to a mass shooter is with an immediate, violent response. The vast majority of the time, as soon as a mass shooter meets serious resistance, it bursts their fantasy world bubble. Then they kill themselves or surrender. This has happened over and over again.

Police are awesome. I love working with cops. However any honest cop will tell you that when seconds count they are only minutes away. After Colombine law enforcement changed their methods in dealing with active shooters. It used to be that you took up a perimeter and waited for overwhelming force before going in. Now usually as soon as you have two officers on scene you go in to confront the shooter (often one in rural areas or if help is going to take another minute, because there are a lot of very sound tactical reasons for using two, mostly because your success/survival rates jump dramatically when you put two guys through a door at once. The shooter’s brain takes a moment to decide between targets). The reason they go fast is because they know that every second counts. The longer the shooter has to operate, the more innocents die.

However, cops can’t be everywhere. There are at best only a couple hundred thousand on duty at any given time patrolling the entire country. Excellent response time is in the three-five minute range. We’ve seen what bad guys can do in three minutes, but sometimes it is far worse. They simply can’t teleport. So in some cases that means the bad guys can have ten, fifteen, even twenty minutes to do horrible things with nobody effectively fighting back.

So if we can’t have cops there, what can we do?

The average number of people shot in a mass shooting event when the shooter is stopped by law enforcement: 14. The average number of people shot in a mass shooting event when the shooter is stopped by civilians: 2.5. The reason is simple. The armed civilians are there when it started.

I hadn’t given much thought to it before. Knowing what I know now about at least half the crowd at most any given public event – I expect that “feelings” are all that too many people have to share. Stopping shy of wisdom to share by having the moment start and end with an expression of shared grief.

I’ve stumbled into running a charity thing with the same kind of hyperbole.

“Save a Life”.

I think my bombast is legit. I’ve started a bone marrow registry drive. The goal is to literally save someone’s life. It’s a numbers game. The more people the better the odds.

People won’t have to pay, as is the norm, to join the registry. I’ve already raised enough cash to cover a boatload. My goal is 300 people (as lame as that sounds that is actually considered a biggins). This gives me more then a 50 percent chance of getting a match.

Look at all the I’s and Me’s. I’m and ego maniac about it. When I get a match…..in my sick fucking mind….I will go to bed knowing my actions saved a life. Is it about the life or me? Who gives a shit.

My charity should be called Help Dead Rabbit Be a Hero.

More things to brag about. I got some big backers. I also have….uh..come into some money myself as of late….so I can throw down too. And, it turns out I can community organize like Barry Soetoro. Well….at least on paper I think I can as I map out my campaign.

Let me put it this way….I think I might be successful enough at this endeavor that I could out myself just blabbing about it anonymously on a blog.

In reality, I’m not stopping this crusade until one of my drives saves a child’s life.

I don’t have the relationship you guys do with God. In fact, you are correct BiC, there is nothing but pain for those of us not outside the fold. You should pity us. It sucks.

Those of us on the outside are left with only about 4 choices when dealing with things like the shooting.

Compartmentalize.
Latch on to some meaningless political cause.
Hate the world and be depressed.
Attempt to kick satan’s ass.

I might not know Jesus….but I can at least emulate St. Micheal.

Action Jackson….motherfuckers!

Sorry for the ramble….it’s Christmas and I tend to get all faux ethnic and toast the old Common Wealth quite a bit with this:

There is a time for corporate prayer, but it’s also about knowing who it is for. That’s where we have the large swaths of society failing the self-check. Or at least they would if they had the presence of mind to do so in the first place.

[…] been seduced by a show of emotion, rather than actual action, and the sacrifice that it requires. In that piece, I was pointing out how it had become in vogue to demonstrate the nouveau “moral” […]

"I want these “…and I’m a communist” dumbshits to have a Coming to Jesus moment that they will NEVER forget. I want them staring in to the eyes of every American who knows that government has very specifically designated roles, and are fed-up to their eyeballs with the overeaching, paternalistic, oppressive monster that the Left (with help from the establishment Right) set loose on us. I want those greedy, lazy, control-freaky bastards quaking with fear when they are met with an electorate determined to wrest their liberties, including the right to fail, back from a government that would enslave us all to the service of a soul-killing mediocrity. I want their asses so horrifiyingly and memorably whipped that the mere memory will cow a century’s worth of socialist/communist/marxist acoyltes into an ashamed silence."
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"When a strict interpretation of the Constitution, according to the fixed rules which govern the interpretation of laws, is abandoned, and the theoretical opinions of individuals are allowed to control its meaning, we no longer have a Constitution, we are under the government of individual men, who for the time being have power to declare what the Constitution is according to their own views of what it ought to mean."--Justice Curtis, Dissent, Dred Scott v. Sanford

"The very idea of power, and the right of the people to establish government, presupposes the duty of every individual to obey the established Government. All obstructions to the execution of its laws, all combinations and associations, under whatever plausible character, with the real design to direct, control, counteract, or awe the regular deliberations and actions of the constituted authorities, are destructive of this fundamental principle, and of fatal tendency."- George Washington

The punishment which the wise suffer who refuse to take part in the government, is to live under the government of worse men.
-Plato

One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors.
-Plato